Cohen: The Lawnmower

(Host) As he gets ready to put his lawnmower away for the winter,
commentator and rabbi Michael Cohen is thinking about our love affair
with the manicured lawn, and what this means for the environment.

(Cohen)
About five years ago I traded my gasoline lawnmower for a battery
powered lawnmower made here in Vermont by the Neuton Company of
Vergennes. I like that it's one fourth quieter than my former lawnmower,
but I especially like that it's much better for the environment.

Decades
ago, while a student at UVM, I put together a panel about American
Culture. Professors from a number of different disciplines spoke. Dr.
Schultz from the History Department had everyone rolling with laughter
when he commented that, "Americans love to cut their lawns butch."

But
that's not so great for the grass and means we cut our lawns too often.
Each weekend, about 54 million Americans mow their lawns. In doing so,
we use 800 million gallons of gas per year, and that in turn produces
tons of air pollutants including carbon monoxide, volatile organic
compounds and nitrogen oxides. So this very American, some might even
say patriotic, activity produces up to 5% of the nation's air pollution.
And of that 800 million gallons of gas we use in lawnmowers, it's
estimated that 17 million gallons are spilled in refueling - and that's
more than the Exxon Valdez oil spill in Alaska.

But I can't feel
smug about using my battery powered lawnmower, because I know I'm also
polluting the earth. It takes roughly 10 cents of electricity to
recharge the battery which helps to reduce my carbon footprint, thereby
reducing one of the main sources of climate change. But the sources of
that electricity are a combination of nuclear, wood, hydro, and wind.
And those non gasoline sources of electricity all have their own impact
on the environment.

And that's why we need to get even smarter
about our environmental choices . Environmental prophet and fellow
Vermonter, Bill McKibben, has been warning us for years that we've
already crossed the 350 parts per million of carbon red line in the
earth's atmosphere and that the consequences of our refusal as a species
to reverse that number will be dire. His recently published article in
Rolling Stone magazine is a very sobering environmental reality check
that's a must read.

There's little we do that doesn't impact the
environment. When you hear the word ‘environment' think: the ecosystem
that sustains all life on our planet - including you and me. We need to
end the false dichotomy that addressing the crisis of the environment
can only happen in ways that short change the American family. Getting
smarter about how we discuss our relationship to the environment means
moving the conversation beyond claims that climate change is not the
result of human behavior and that changing our behavior will be bad for
our standard of living. And we need that conversation to ignite a
greater awareness that complex environmental issues are often no more
than a critical mass of every day choices - choices as simple as how and
when to mow the lawn.